East Midlands Ambulance Service crews attending to an emergency were shocked after returning to their vehicle to find a note complaining about them blocking someone's driveway.

The crew had been responding to a genuine emergency in the early hours of the morning, and returned to their vehicle to find a note on their windscreen.

The handwritten note told the crew off for 'blocking their driveway for 45 minutes', despite the ambulance being parked as considerately as possible. The incident occurred in Leicester.

East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) is now urging members of the public to speak to them if they urgently need to leave their house and their access is blocked, rather than leaving notes which may not be seen.

Lee Brentnall, Paramedic and Ambulance Operations Manager for Leicestershire said: "It is so disappointing to see that a rude note has yet again been left on one of our ambulances.

"This upsets our dedicated ambulance crews when they are trying to help our patients and do their job.

"Leaving a note will not resolve the situation as we are unlikely to see it until we are leaving in the ambulance to take the patient to hospital or to go to our next job.

"Our crews are approachable. If you genuinely need to leave your house urgently and we are blocking your access, please come and knock on the door where the emergency is taking place.

"Sometimes we will be able to move the vehicle, for example, if we are treating a patient but they do not need both of us there at the time.

"However, there will be times that we are treating someone experiencing a life-threatening and time-critical emergency and moving our ambulance will not be our priority.

"In these cases, you will need to be patient as we try to save someone's life."